Emissions reporting and carbon management planning update

Creative Carbon Scotland is once again supporting organisations with carbon reduction responsibilities under their funding agreements.

Caro Overy will again be working with Creative Carbon Scotland as our Carbon Management Planning Officer and will be available from mid-August to support all organisations required to submit emissions reports and carbon management plans under their funding agreements. This year, she will be supporting Creative Scotland Regular Funded Organisations (RFOs) to submit their information by 27th September 2019 and, for the first time, supporting organisations receiving cultural funding from City of Edinburgh Council to submit their information by 4th October 2019.

Carbon Management gives organisations an opportunity to measure, monitor, and ultimately reduce their impact in a practical way. While Creative Scotland RFOs have been required to report emissions since 2016, 2018 was the first year there was any requirement around carbon management planning. The organisations have committed to a carbon reduction project in each of the three years of their current funding. Examples from some of last year’s plans included organisations planning strategic reductions in flights, planning to provide artists with tools and expertise for green touring, and some organisations planning the replacement of existing lighting with LED alternatives. We saw high uptake and lots of positive engagement with carbon management planning and are looking forward to finding out how organisations have progressed against their plans.

As with all plans, there will be some carbon management plans that have been more successful than predicted, and others where challenges have held back progress, and others where things have gone as expected. All of this will be part of our collective learning journey in carbon management and help to build the overall picture of how the arts in Scotland deals with its carbon footprint.

You’ll find information on our Carbon Management pages. We hope you find them useful. Even if your organisation isn’t currently obliged to report on your emissions or create a carbon management plan, our Tools and Resources can help you take practical action to reduce your climate impact.

Green Champions from Creative Scotland RFOs and City of Edinburgh Council funded organisations can find Guidance on their environmental duties on our website and will shortly receive an email with full details of requirements for this reporting and planning.

If you have any questions please contact Caro Overy to arrange support.

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.